


consensus ad idem

by rojohbi



Category: Legally Blonde - All Media Types, Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin
Genre: F/M, Pining, Tutoring to Friends to Lovers, someone teach this boy to hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rojohbi/pseuds/rojohbi
Summary: CONSENSUS AD IDEM (noun): Agreement to the same. Meeting of the minds, mutual assent, or concurrence of wills. Parties must be of one mind and their promises must relate to the same subject or object.
Relationships: Emmett Forrest/Elle Woods
Comments: 27
Kudos: 277
Collections: legally blonde





	consensus ad idem

**Author's Note:**

> my favorite thing about this musical is that almost every work starts off with the writer saying they've watch it on repeat for days
> 
> i've watched this on repeat for days
> 
> i needed a break from the writers block of my other work and any excuse to watch christian borle and laura bb be in love is good enough for me

When he first looks at the bright pink little thing on the campus courtyard, Emmett has no idea what to expect. Something interesting, sure - that’s no surprise to anyone with eyes or ears. Elle is a splash of vivid color on a relatively drab landscape of cookie-cutter students, and she refuses to be defined no matter what stereotype you attempt to categorize her as. She’s airheaded, easily entertained, and wildly naive when it comes to the intentions of others. Yet the more that Emmett gets to know her, the more he sees those initial flaws as boons, as part of the reason she’s so upbeat and optimistic, ready to face anything without being felled. 

Emmett probably shouldn’t have been surprised when she ends up becoming his best friend.

It’s a slow process, gradual in the way of tectonic plates and rush hour traffic. At first, he offers to help her out only because he can’t imagine saying no to her. Tear-streaked in a bunny costume and in over her head, Emmett empathizes with her despite their completely opposite upbringings. Anyone else that rich and pampered would have been insufferable to be around, but Elle listens and takes him seriously. Learns to take herself seriously. She responds well to criticism and responds poorly to being pushed around, which earns her a quick respect once she finds her footing in her classes. From the very beginning Elle has been kind and curious, an imaginative problem solver, and she has a sly attitude that only surfaces from time to time.

“You can’t use a half-loop stitch on China silk, that dress is from last August, and I can assure you that I’m not stupid enough for that to work.” 

Elle smiles at a stricken looking saleswoman, Emmett hiding a laugh behind his hand. They’d gone out together to shop for their mothers’ incidentally similar birthdays, and Emmett has to admit that watching Elle sweetly chew out anyone with the nerve to talk down to her is invigorating. He could do this all day. It’s better than contact sports. 

“Mia, is it? Thanks  _ so  _ much for your suggestion.”

Twice weekly tutoring becomes daily studying, and by the time a month has gone by they’re together every day. Emmett often stays in her dorm while she goes to class, and she returns with her massive purse on one arm and the other laden with some kind of goodie for them to share. Ice cream, takeout, a new Bollywood movie that they will dance along with terribly when their brains get over saturated with latin etymology and case files. 

They work late into the night, and fall asleep studying often enough that Elle buys a cute little white pleather futon for Emmett to crash on instead of catching a bus back to his apartment. His feet hang off the end, and the metal support bar digs into his back unforgivingly. It never deters Emmett from spending a vast majority of his week there in the presence of Elle, and he refuses to try and justify it to himself. Instead he just doesn’t question it, and quizzes Elle until she’s drooling on his shoulder.

\--

Christmas approaches swiftly, and Elle becomes a staple in Emmett’s life. They’re together constantly, and there’s an underlying assumption that anything they do alone is an unspoken invitation for the other to join. Emmett has an all-hours pass to enter Elle’s dorm room, and he’s started leaving a spare key beneath a loose brick outside his apartment for Elle to have the same freedom with his space. He barely knows how it happened, this strange little cohabitation system that they’ve formed, but it’s the only real source of stability he’s had in years.

Emmett has never really been one to date. There’ve been a few, of course - a high school sweetheart who calls from time to time, now married with her third kid on the way. A fling from his bisexual awakening that lead to a two-year relationship and ultimately messy breakup. Maybe two others, whom he’d gotten as far as fondness with when Emmett’s devotion to school and work ended up smothering any spark there might’ve been. Having people around is nice, but keeping them around has never been Emmett’s forte. It’s actually been the antithesis of his college career, and he was beginning to border on hermit once he didn’t have classes as built-in socialization.

Then, he meets Elle Woods.

It’s clear that everyone thinks she’s stupid for the first few months, and Emmett can’t entirely blame them. She didn’t give them anything to suggest otherwise, and whenever Warner walked into the room she turned into an absolute loon. Yet, Emmett knows that people don’t just walk into Harvard because they have money. And the fact that Elle made a last minute decision to apply and actually managed to get in is impressive, despite her lack of understanding what her acceptance would entail.

That’s the most interesting part about his growing understanding of Elle and her mannerisms. She’s not stupid, nor is she a slacker. Emmett has seen her transcripts, and the sheer amount of extracurricular activity she had been a part of at UCLA while maintaining her perfect GPA was staggering. He could barely wrap his head around how Elle had managed to fit that many hours into one day. No matter her major, Elle worked hard when she set her mind to something. The more time they spend together, the more Emmett starts to see that to Elle, academic success means something completely foreign.

She likes to study by talking, not just verbally reciting their study notes but having actual conversations with Emmett about the topics. He notices that she remembers definitions far better when she has an anecdote to relate them to instead of memorization by rote. Emmett capitalizes on the realization, and finds more ways for them to study without stuffing their noses in books. 

His favorite is something they call Charades 101, where Emmett will act out getting stabbed and Elle will topple over a bowl of popcorn in her excitement to shout, “Malum in se!” They play it so often that certain things around Elle’s dorm room mean something specific, which lead to Warner once walking in as Emmett held Bruiser and gestured wildly at the clock while Elle shouted in confused Latin. Warner had furrowed his brow, turned around, and walked right back into the hall. Elle and Emmett both stood in silence before bursting into laughter, Bruiser yipping in his ear. 

Elle’s favorite is something she calls ‘corrective television’, where they sit on the floor with snacks and notebooks and fix any unlawful behavior on shows like  _ Law & Order _ . It usually devolves into either frustrated yelling at the indifferent television, or the two of them recreating the case while Elle does terrible impressions of the characters and Emmett laughs so hard he wheezes. 

Her learning preference wouldn’t be that unusual on it’s own, but Emmett starts to notice a strange pattern. The first time he catches her reading a regency novel, Elle turns so red he’s almost worried for her health. Emmett finds a stack of classical and jazz CDs tucked aside in her closet like some kind of secret, and some of the plastic cases are so worn out that he’s sure Elle’s had them for years. After an overnight stay at his apartment, Emmett hears her quietly singing in his shower (absolutely not thinking about that, by the way) and he looks up the lyrics only to find that it’s a poem by Yeats. Elle’s voice is beautiful and hushed, and he will never admit to how long he stood there with his ear pressed to the bathroom door. Emmett doesn’t even  _ like  _ Yeats. 

It all nags at Emmett for weeks as the clues build up, making a bit of sense individually but clearly hinting at something else. Something about Elle that he wants to know without being told, borne only through understanding. 

He doesn’t put it all together until Elle gives him the final clue over clamshell boxes full of Thai food, cross-legged on her bed with  _ Murder One _ playing on mute in the background. 

“God, did you see his face when I said it? Not so Marilyn, now. Though, I still don’t think that quite the insult he thought it was.”

“You mean - Monroe?” Emmett looks at her, confused as she turns a bit pink at the question. Usually open to a fault, it’s even more strange that she’s hesitating in the least.

Elle finally nods, and pokes at her food for a moment before she shrugs. “It’s what Warner said when he broke up with me - that if he’s going to be a senator, he needs less of a Marilyn and more of a Jackie.” Her nose scrunches up, and Emmett might pay more attention to that if he wasn’t so busy fantasizing about throttling Warner. 

(Sometimes, when he thinks for too long about what Elle and Warner’s years-long relationship must have been like for her, Emmett understands the appeal of solving problems with violence.)

It all clicks together quickly, forming a neat little line in his mind of things about Elle that tilt the Earth’s axis. Elle isn’t old swanky rich, she’s  _ trophy wife  _ rich. Enough education to keep her entertained and entertaining, but nothing of substance. Nothing that might make her want more out of life. Nothing that goes against the grain. Perfectly built to be a wife and very little else.

Her hidden interests, harmless as they are, suddenly make complete sense. Elle had been meticulously crafted to hang onto someone’s arm and be beautiful and charming, and she’s lived in a world that made her want that for herself. It’s not a wrong thing to want if it’s your own wish, but he sees a different kind of woman in her. A person with strong opinions and a sharp mind, a person who wants to change the way the world works. He sees how she learned to hide that, to compartmentalize it until it nearly disappeared. Emmett wants to reach out to her, to pry every secret fascination out of her until he knows exactly what will heal all the little wounds that keep getting reopened. 

Elle’s continued fixation on Warner makes more sense now - her need to prove herself, devote herself in the only way accepted by those around her. The mindless love has faded, Emmett has seen that for a while now, and Warner is instead a safety net for her in a place that still doesn’t quite accept her.

Emmett could never deny her that. But he can’t deny her the opportunity to claim something more for herself, either. 

“You aren’t either of those, Woods. Warner’s got no idea what he's losing out on.”

There’s basil in her teeth when Elle grins, unrepentant and bright and so gorgeous that Emmett nearly chokes on his khao soi. It's the happiest he’s ever been.

\--

Emmett and Elle are a series of near-misses when it comes to touching. It’s not an infrequent thing - if anything, it’s a constant undercurrent to the time they spend together. Emmett’s apartment doesn’t have much more space than Elle’s dorm, but even in a spacious room he has a feeling they’d still slide past each other with scant inches to spare. Because it’s not the actual contact that’s a near miss - it’s the way they lean into each other’s space like they’re magnetized, then sway back again. Polarized.

At first, it’s only when they’re alone together. Elle isn’t adjusted to the cold of the Northeast and will adhere herself to Emmett’s side, half-tucked into his jacket. She loves to worm her freezing fingers onto the bare skin of his stomach when he’s unsuspecting, just to laugh at the resulting yelp. There’s a lower risk of sneak attacks if Emmett just keeps her warm from the start. 

That’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

Emmett isn’t fooling himself anymore. He knows that Elle Woods has his full attention, that he’s not just infatuated with the bubbly and beautiful woman. Yet, despite his own revelations regarding Elle’s character she’s still attached to the idea of Warner. Emmett is content where he is, best friends with the most incredible woman he’s ever met, and he has no unfortunate delusions about anything actually happening between them due to the twenty-thousand leagues between them. His dreams are for him alone.

When Elle starts clinging to his arm as they walk to class together, Emmett doesn’t think twice about it. He bumps her shoulder with his own as they enter the room, and snickers at her griping about their height difference. “Your fault for not wearing heels,” he quips back, and turns to set his things down.

To find half their class staring at him. Warner Huntington the Third looks particularly incredulous.

Interesting.

Emmett can’t help a self-satisfied little smile, and it takes significant effort not to look over at Elle. “Something on my face?” Warner just looks away. Enid cackles with laughter.

It only escalates from there.

The weather warms up a bit, and they start going out more. Emmett tags along with her to go just about anywhere, happily hanging around while she shops or hunts for plain pistachio ice cream. He goes with her to get her second ear piercing, to get a ring resized (a very embarrassing choice, considering they all think the two of them are married), to try on new shoes. And she clings to him through it all, hand tucked neat into the crook of his elbow. It eventually devolves into hand-holding, which devolves into hooked pinkies as Elle leans forward to look at a rack of dresses while a shopkeeper looks on fondly. Emmett’s throat goes dry.

Their classmates have gotten their questions out of their systems, and now Elle clinging to the teacher’s assistant is old news. Everyone knows they’re friends, that Elle just clings to people due to being all full up of unconditional love and boundless enthusiasm.

Emmett loves it. Emmett loves - 

Her, a little bit. Maybe. 

Elle doesn’t hug much, and Emmett is perfectly fine with that. She’d tried once when he gave her a gift on Christmas, and his hands just hovered. Startled into action but too startled to move. Even now, used to her casual touch, Emmett isn’t sure he could figure out the complex mechanisms of returning a hug.

Emmett discovers instead that he has a very specific weakness, and it’s the growing portfolio of moments where Elle grabs at the lapels of his blazer or the open front of his button-up shirts. Sometimes she’ll just pull him in towards her when she gets overly excited, and sometimes her little hands will ball up in the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He can feel the press of her knuckles and the warmth of her right up against his thudding heart. Emmett doesn’t lose his grip - he stays coherent and contained, not easily rattled by much of anything. That doesn’t mean that her warmth isn’t melting him, as she grabs him by the arms and shakes him around outside of Paulette’s old trailer with an astonished grin. She’s leaned in far too close and when Emmett takes a deep breath, he’s taken in by the sweet smell of clove and sugar. 

There’s no end to it all. Elle pokes his nose, hooks a finger in his belt loop, flattens a palm against his chest as she adjusts a heel strap. He wonders if she can feel his heart trying to knock his sternum outward as he runs his eyes over her perfect pink nails and the delicate bend of her wrist. It’s testing that control he has so much faith in, and Emmett doesn’t want to give too much thought to how close he is to giving in.

Any minute now.

“Is - is that my name?” 

All thoughts of Warner’s recent engagement seeming to flee her, Elle leans hard into Emmett as she stares at the sheaf of paper like it offers the secrets of life. Her hand closes into the fabric of his t-shirt, and the steadying hand he places just above the small of her back is returned with a big smile. She leans into him just so, and Emmett’s breath catches. Elle’s long lashes lower and lift, and if he weren’t so close he would’ve never caught the flit of white teeth catching the inside of her bottom lip. When he looks up she’s looking at him with a soft, pleased expression. 

She leans out of his space, and they both pretend she didn’t just catch him staring at her glossy mouth. Emmett watches her slip away to politely gloat to every one of the assholes who assumed she would never make it this far, watches as she proves them all wrong by merely existing. 

Emmett drinks in the long line of her legs from beneath her pink houndstooth dress. The confident strut in her walk, the happy abandon that takes her over. 

Any minute now.

Elle takes him shopping after the first day of the trial. She’s right - he’ll never really impress Callahan unless Emmett learns to conform to the professional world. He spends the whole time with a frog in his throat, chasing her with his eyes and standing so close he feels her breath. It’s not so different from Emmett’s usual behavior, except that Elle is suddenly chasing him back. Stepping into him with a sense of intention he’s never once seen in her. Grazing the back of her fingers against his jaw, causing him to huff out a disbelieving breath.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d start to think that Elle wants him. Emmett succumbs to hope, and decides he  _ doesn’t  _ know any better. He doesn’t even want to. Believing in more is intoxicating.

He watches Elle bounce around the store, entirely in her element. She’s endearingly excited, holding up ties and suit jackets to compare their material and color. Her nimble fingers flip up his shirt collar, tie a perfect windsor knot as she speaks to him in low tones. Emmett is mostly listening, or at least he’s trying to. She has a matte beige lipstick on, and it keeps drawing his attention. He knows from experience that lipstick is waxy and messy, and Emmett thinks of her leaving soft and impermanent marks on his skin, of tasting the wry and painted curve of her mouth. It’s disorienting, and the way Elle looks at him makes him feel like she can see right into his skull to the things he’s imagining.

Elle pays an exorbitant amount of money for a simple suit, and runs her hand up his chest when she says that he looks hot, which - is not necessarily a word that Emmett has ever thought in reference to himself. It makes his stomach drop, like a physical ache. Emmett thinks,  _ I could love you like this for as long as you asked me to _ , and then considers the fact that if he doesn’t kiss her soon he might run out of chances.

How many chances had he already missed, wanting things to stay the same?

Emmett walks her back to her dorm, and leans in. Leans further. Leans to kiss her.

Elle hugs him for the second time, arms firm around his middle. Emmett can barely get his arms to cooperate, to hold her back. It’s almost as good as kissing her, the way her soft hair tickles his nose and her cheek presses to his chest.

Any minute now.

“Hey. Intern of the year.”

Emmett leans up against the door of her room, watching Elle make her way down the hall. She moves slowly, head hung where he can’t see her face, and things have gone so well that day he doesn’t even consider anything but exhaustion. When Elle finally approaches, her cheeks are wet and her makeup is smeared. 

He knows how happy tears work - Elle cries them often enough, and it’s never a full sob. Her makeup stays relatively together and she’s always in a frenzy of energy when she’s worked up enough to cry of joy. The girl standing in front of him now has been weeping, and the melancholic smile that twists her lips as she looks at him makes Emmett want to wrap her up in his arms. Makes him want to tuck her in, comfort her, figure out what could have possibly gone so wrong between the Hauser building and the North Hall. 

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Em.” Elle’s voice is so quiet, and the hoarse sound of it devastates him. “I can’t believe the things you’ve done for me, sometimes. You’ve treated me well from the very beginning, and I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“Elle, what’s wrong?”

“I’m really sorry, Em. I’m really sorry I wasted your time, everyone’s time.”

“You - That’s ludicrous, what - “

“You have always been the best thing about this place. Even before I realized it.” Elle looks pained, a crease between her brows, and Emmett has to stop himself from smoothing it down with a wayward thumb.

“Elle, you should know - “

“Callahan hit on me.” 

Emmett watches her face contort, like she has to drag the words out of herself. Like it hurts to speak, to breathe, to be.

“He  _ what _ .”

It’s not a question. Emmett seethes. 

“He kissed me, and then promptly fired me when I - made it clear I wasn’t going to be participating.” Her hesitation is telling.

“What did you - “

Elle laughs, and it sounds just as thoroughly broken as her voice. “I slapped him.”

Emmett just makes a breathless noise, and for the first time, pulls her into his arms.

He’s not great at it, to say the least. Emmett’s always been all elbows, all angles, and he hardly knows what to do with himself when Elle hiccups a sob into his chest and clings on. Tucking his face into her hair, Emmett breathes her in and knows this won’t be enough.

The way that Elle interrupted him that time, he thinks,  _ She knows _ . And she doesn’t want to hear it now, while the world is turned upside down and she’s had her underlying fear of not deserving a single thing that she’s earned made true. The internship that elated her is now another badge of shame, another example of allowances made just so someone can have some eye candy conveniently placed somewhere in the room.

“I just wanted to say thank you, and goodbye,” Elle says as she extracts herself from his arms. Emmett goes cold at that, can only think, I never even got to kiss you.

“No, Elle, please.” Emmett doesn’t have time to feel embarrassed by the pleading in his voice. “We can work this out, we can fix this.”

Elle shakes her head, bites her lip so hard that Emmett sees the skin blanch. She backs towards her door, inches it open only for Emmett to smack a hand into it with more force than he intends to. The sound makes Elle flinch, and he wonders if the horror he feels at the mistake is capable of eating him alive. He’ll never be able to forget that look on her face. He’ll never be able to forgive himself, if that’s the final thing he leaves her with when Elle runs home to California.

“Emmett,” she says, and for a long moment they just look at each other. No words are needed for that suspended second in time, where the world seems to still. Emmett finds himself shedding tears for the first time in a while. Elle curves her soft palm around his cheek, sweet as can be, and brushes them away with her thumb. “There’s no reason for me to stay.”

The door shuts with a definitive click, and Emmett slumps against it. Her words burn, leave him half as wounded as her and still barely able to stand as he understands the implications.

“I love you,” Emmett says very softly to the closed door. 

He walks home hoping to whatever’s out there that he can get her words to stop ringing in his head.

Time’s up.

Elle wins the trial. It reminds her why she’s here, why she even bothered to stay at Harvard this long, and Emmett watches the success fill her with deserved and hard-earned pride. Her beaming smile makes his knees weak when it’s pointed elsewhere, and when she turns it on his Emmett has to lean back to keep his balance.

_ Did you really think I was going to let you get away? _ Her breath had halted, mouth parted as Emmett leaned by to give her a satisfied smile. No one had made Elle speechless in the entire time Emmett had known her, and being able to manage it made him heady and pleased. 

She gets her comeuppance, leaving him like a stumbling fawn after nothing but a smile. 

When she finally races towards him, Emmett throws his arms around her without reserve. He’s tired of taking her in at a snail’s pace, even-keel so as not to startle himself. There’s no way that he’s going to risk losing out on a moment with her, only willing to relinquish his hold if it’s for something that she needs.

Speak of the devil.

Emmett is close enough to kiss her, their noses bumping and Elle’s pretty green eyes lit up with something he can’t even begin to define. When he locks eyes with Warner standing a few feet back, the men both know what Emmett was intending for the little shared moment with Elle. Yet, Emmett knows that speaking with Warner should come before whatever it is that Em and Elle have. She’s earned closure on all fronts, and Emmett takes satisfaction in the blatant disappointment in Elle’s expression when she looks back to see who’s waiting for her.

“It’s okay,” Emmet chuckles, giving her hand a squeeze before pulling away entirely. “I… I’m gonna see you later.” He’s surprised by how confident he is of that, how sure he is that Elle is looking at him with the same adoration that he feels. 

He doesn’t have to wait long. Emmett tries not to feel too smug about that.

“What did Warner want?”

Elle snorts, rolling her eyes. “My hand in holy matrimony.”

Emmett coughs a laugh, shocked. He had a feeling that Warner was going to broach the topic of their previous breakup, maybe even ask her out. He wasn’t expecting the man to propose after a year of degrading and belittling her. “How charming. Vivian broke up with him?”

“Yup,” Elle confirms, popping the word like gum. He likes it when she does that. She approaches Emmett where he’s sitting on her bed, slow and deliberate and looking like she’s fit to pounce. He likes it when she does that, too. 

Emmett smirks at her, enjoying the way her eyes drop at the movement. “Should I start calling you Huntington comma Elle, then?” 

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Does being his wife make you a Huntington the Third-point-five?”

“Emmett,” she warns.

“Having children whose names end in things like the Eight is just cruel, y’know.”

“Emmett, shut up.” Elle is directly in front of him now, slim thighs bumping his spread knees, and Emmett grins up at her. 

“Gladly,” he says, and tugs her down to meet him.

They don’t rise for a long time. Those thighs are heaven beneath his hands, pressed to his hips where she kneels atop him. Her lips are soft, her hair is smooth, her tongue is silk. Elle kisses like she’s taking her time, like she wants to remember every moment of it. Emmett doesn’t think he could possibly forget. He murmurs  _ I love you _ against her mouth, and the way that Elle keens is answer enough.

Finally.


End file.
